October 30, 2026 at 4:00 PM ET · 5 min read · by David Strausser
The 80/20 shelf
Start with the ABC split, because counting everything is how counting projects die.
A items: the handful of SKUs that are most of your revenue. Count these monthly.
B items: the middle. Count these quarterly.
C items: the long tail of cheap, slow movers. Count these twice a year.
An A-item that is off by ten units can distort a month of purchasing. A C-item that is off by ten units is a rounding error. The count should spend its effort where the money is.
Odoo: cycle counts as rules, not events
Frequently asked questions
How often should each class of items be counted?
Count A items monthly, B items quarterly, and C items twice a year. The count spends its effort where the money is: an A-item that is off by ten units can distort a month of purchasing, while a C-item off by ten is a rounding error.
Do I have to shut the warehouse down to cycle count?
No. That is the point of counting on a rolling calendar. Every shelf gets counted on its own schedule in small batches, so the annual count stops being an event and becomes a confirmation instead of a reconciliation.
What if the counts keep finding the same gaps?
Then the count is doing its job as a detector, and the problem is receiving. If units land on the shelf without ever landing in the system, the variance will never close no matter how good the counting schedule is. Receiving discipline is the cure.
Odoo or SAP Business One — which one should I run this on?
Either. Both run cycle counting on rules instead of memory: Odoo generates counts from the rules you set per location, and SAP Business One schedules them by cycle code, warehouse, and item group. The better fit depends on the rest of your operation, which is exactly what a short call sorts out.
David is CEO of Dead Brands, LLC and Head of Sales
(contracted) for Quaint Business Solutions — an ERP
veteran of over a decade across SAP Business One and
Odoo. Ex-General Manager (Northeast) at Vision33 and
VP of Business Development at SEIDOR. Dad, guitarist, Eagles fan.
Running on spreadsheets, QuickBooks, or an ERP that fights you? Grab a free 30-minute call — I'll tell you straight whether SAP Business One or Odoo is the right move, and what it really costs.
